The pace of marketing is starting to look less like a hard and fast calendar and more like a live system shaped by culture and social media, where trends can spread in hours and fade just as quickly. The speed of online attention is a key driver behind this shift. That shift is pushing large consumer brands to rethink how they construct products and run campaigns, and the way they turn attention into sales.
That change sits on the centre of Unilever’s current marketing direction. Chief Growth and Marketing Officer Esi Eggleston Bracey said the corporate’s “Desire at Scale” strategy is designed to help brands connect with people “authentically and at speed to drive sales.” She described the model as one which links culture, community, and commerce more closely than before.
This makes the shift greater than a brand message. It points to a wider operating shift inside large consumer firms. Instead of treating product, media, and commerce as separate steps, the goal is to tighten the link between what individuals are talking about and what brands select to make. It also connects those decisions more closely to how products are sold. Unilever’s 2025 annual report describes “Desire at Scale” as a part of a broader push to construct “a faster, simpler and technology-enabled organisation Fit for the AI Age.”
The company’s wording adds vital context here. Bracey didn’t frame the strategy as easy ad optimisation. She wrote that the approach is about “relevance as a growth engine,” with marketing built around stronger cultural connection and faster motion. This suggests a model where timing matters as much because the message itself.
From trends to product decisions in marketing
A recent Sunsilk launch offers a clearer view of how that works in practice. Unilever said Sunsilk has been reshaped around Gen Z beauty trends through social-first marketing and recent product ideas. One example is Wondermist, a hair perfume mist designed around a “mood-boosting” concept. The company said the product uses fragrance technology tied to emotion and confidence. This shows how the brand is mixing beauty, self-care, and science-backed claims in the identical launch.
That positioning also reflects a broader change in beauty marketing. Unilever cited research from Kantar showing that eight in ten people now seek holistic beauty routines that include self-care. In other words, beauty is being sold less as pure function and more as a part of mood and routine. This helps explain why brands reminiscent of Sunsilk are attempting to construct products that fit each emotional and practical needs.
This doesn’t mean every viral trend should develop into a product. But it does show how marketing teams are being asked to work closer to product teams than before. A trend may begin as a social signal. The response can then shape packaging, formula, and creator content. Retail timing may additionally shift to match demand. The challenge is to move fast without making claims which might be weak or hard to support.
Balancing speed with credibility
That is where the “science-backed” part becomes vital. In categories like beauty and private care, emotional language alone is commonly not enough. A product could also be framed around confidence or self-expression, but buyers still expect some evidence behind the claim. That is why brands often pair lifestyle language with ingredient stories or testing. Sunsilk’s Wondermist is one example of that blend.
There can also be a practical reason large brands are moving this manner. Social platforms do not only shape awareness anymore. They also influence demand and product discovery. Buying intent often follows quickly. When a brand sees a transparent shift in how younger consumers discuss beauty, waiting for the subsequent planning cycle may mean missing the moment.
Unilever’s framing of culture, community, and commerce suggests it sees these signals as a part of one continuous system quite than separate tasks.
This creates each promise and risk. A tighter link between social trends and product launches may help brands react faster. It may additionally make brand planning less stable if every short-lived signal gets treated as a serious opportunity. The harder task is selecting which signals matter and which don’t.
Still, the broader direction is evident. Marketing is moving closer to real-time decision-making. Cultural relevance and product timing have gotten more closely linked to sales. Unilever’s “Desire at Scale” strategy offers one view of that shift. It shows how marketing is not any longer only about what a brand says in public, but in addition about how quickly an organization can act on what it learns.
(Photo by Melanie Deziel)
See also: Unilever partners with Google Cloud to expand AI use in marketing and commerce
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